The House of Shadows (Part 1)

This is not an ordinary story, but it’s not an extraordinary story either. It’s just a story, a story about love, a story about compassion, a story… a story about death.



CHAPTER ONE



He watched a girl running under a sky the colour of burnt roses and purple irises. The wind was whipping her hair into a golden banner behind her as her feet thundered through fields of wild flowers, groves of massive oaks and Marigold. She was running as fast as her little legs could carry her, her feet as light as an eagle’s wings. She spread out her arms embracing the elements smelling the coming storm. He could feel the electricity rushing through his veins, his mouth turning up on the sides. Leland based his years watching Isabella as she grew into a swan like creature with long limbs and flowing hair. Even though she changed in front of him, her eyes always stayed the same. Unwavering, strong, the colour of moss.



Leland sat at his post day after day, month after month only moving when the doors behind him opened up. The doors he guarded were attached to a very peculiar house. An old broken down chateau seated in the middle of a great field with tall oaks guarding the house from sunshine and wind. Behind the house gravestones loomed out of the ground like the teeth of a great mythical creature. But what made this house so strange was its windows; at nights when the moon were at its fullest strange lights could be seen shining from their depths and if you listened carefully you could hear crying and a gnashing of teeth. Folk never went there except when they buried one of their own.

They called it Chambre des Ombres – the House of Shadows.

CHAPTER TWO

Leland heard a noise coming from the graveyard. As swift as a breath of air he was standing behind a great oak looking over the graveyard. He saw a girl on her knees hunched over a fresh grave with a single iris in her hands, the name ‘Connor’ printed on a stone slab. The other hand was over her stomach, she was physically sick from being broken. Leland looked upon her as she sat there in an abyss of sadness and pain. For the first time in millenniums Leland could feel her pain, it struck him like a lightning force pushing him to the ground as tears came to his eyes. The sun glinted merrily on her golden hair but her head was bent away from light.

Leland couldn’t move, couldn’t think as he watched her thin shoulders shaking and trembling with sobs, wracking her world. As the sun began to set she threw her head back and cried in torture, the sunbeams of the setting sun fell in her mouth making her cry seem otherworldly and terrifying. It was a nuclear fire burning inside of her, it was a scream harsh and broken, but silent, entirely silent. Leland let out a deep shuddering breath trying to push what he was feeling back, into the depths of eternity. But the girl turned around and looked him straight in the eye.

Leland’s body convulsed as he realized who the girl was, it was Isabella but she was changed. Her emerald eyes were broken, with shadows in them and through them shone the shattered pieces of her soul. Isabella got up and ran but Leland stayed behind, silent, shaking, unnerved that sorrow could change a human being so irrevocably. And now, after millenniums of numbness he was able to feel every ounce of Isabella's torture.


CHAPTER THREE



On the night that the moon was at its darkest Leland sat staring out at the changing heavens and the wind in the oaks. In the distance he caught sight of a flickering light wavering in the windswept fields. For the second time in a week he left his post, and as quiet as a sigh he landed behind some shrubs near the burning candle. An apocalyptic force entered his psyche forcing his head into his hands. Far too late he realized that it was Isabella’s thoughts opening a portal between him and her. He could hear the wind screeching through the holes in her soul; a sorrowful piercing sound setting his teeth on edge. Leland’s blood ran cold as he realized that this was the cry of the banshee echoing through her being. Through the mass tangles of pain he saw for the first time; a silver glint grasped between her fingers and rivers of blood running down her arms. Before he was able to grasp the impact of what he saw he was pulled back into Isabella’s mind.

" My white dress is dripping with blood. My hair falls over my face, covering my eyes, the priest with the friendly eyes is tied to a cross, and the church is slowly falling into itself. As I take your hand I realize that it’s slick with blood. I try to hold on to you but my hands are slipping. I realize that my wings are broken, feeling your hand on my cheek I know that it will be the final touch I’ll ever receive. “For better or worse till death do you part” I hear the priest cry before disappearing into a cloud. I see a strong shaft of light; I try to follow you but I can’t. I keep slipping on my blood. I can’t reach you as you turn around walking alone; still looking back trying to drag me with you. Your eyes never leaving mine. My hands grope at empty air as I fall on my knees with the most beautiful dress I’ve ever seen billowing around me, stained with crimson sticky red. A flood of salty tears washes the metallic blood from my cheeks leaving behind; only the smell of fear. The salt from my tears burns the wounds on my wrists, the memory of you burns holes in my heart. Making me choke. Things are coming out of my mouth as I realize I’m coughing out my soul, piece by torturing piece. I wrap my white dress around me while chanting confused “ashes to ashes, dust to dust” remembering those words from a distant life. Hoping, praying, crying that you will turn around and save me before time withers away. I fall into a trance with my broken wings around me; and my fairy tale dress over, across and under me.

Leland pulled with every force of energy he could summon to remove himself from Isabella's mind. Her sadness had become like a fallen star, slowly turning into a black hole. His ears started ringing, his fingers went numb and then he felt himself spin out of control. His and Isabella's mind once again, one.

"As the walls begin to crumble I see your shadow at the end of the path. Just before I close my eyes, giving up all hope, I see you. Turning around and mouthing, screaming, feeling three small words at me giving me your everything; “I LOVE YOU”. While leaving a trail of crimson footsteps as a single tear slide from your eyes."

Leland was slowly losing the last bit of control he had, he could feel himself drowning. Slowly disappearing in the chaos that was Isabella.

"My confused mind starts spinning and all is falling away. All that is left is blood, tears, a beautiful white dress and the blue of your eyes. I feel everything become even simpler with every ragged breath I take. Warm stickiness on my flesh; ocean water on my cheeks; clouds around me and a final good-bye; out of the blue. I feel seconds, minutes, blood, tears, love, fear. Fear, love, blood, tears. Stones are crashing around me, echoing my screams of torture, fear, love, blood, tears. I try to wipe the dust from my eyes, but instead I change my tears to crimson drops falling on my snowy white dress. “Skin as white as snow, lips as red as blood”. An ancient drone is vibrating in my ears. A song I learned as a child, a simple rhyme - nothing more, nothing less - starts ringing in my ears. “Ring a ring a rosies... hush, hush we all fall down.” The roof gives in and falls around me, pinning my dress and hair to the ground. My back aching on the cold unyielding marble and arms spread out. My useless wings. Pictures of you and me flash before my eyes. A pain so physical it blinds me crashes on my head when I realize that I will never see you again. Right at that moment I realize that you will never come back and that I will stay in this place, tortured until the end of time. I wanted to leave myself for you. My heart is pinned on a crucifix hanging from a rosary around your neck. I wasn’t complete without you. It struck me that one can not die when one is not complete and one can not live without being complete. I was stuck between something and nothing, being neither this nor that."



With one last mighty pull Leland wrenched himself from Isabella’s consciences. He now witnessed her mighty fall into the realm of shadows from a safe distance. She was open to the elements as rain pelted on her, the air crackling with electricity. Her mouth became a rictus, her eyes, two pools of pain. Leland could feel the elements raging around her as she screamed “fire, wind, earth, aqua.” Leland was torn between who he was and who he could be. He would be able to save her from her final descend but at what cost? He could see her mind, a swirling creek of twisted thoughts, and then with a final whisper “Till death do us part” she started sinking into herself.

Leland stepped out of the shadows as he grabbed Isabella by the arms. Forcing his entire being into a spell he pulled both of them out of the realm of shadows back into the field which was now filtered with early morning sunshine. He gently put Isabella down on a patch of grass near the burned out candle before he touched her arms with the livid red scars on them. He started chanting a quiet whisper as the scars slowly started to heal. Leland could feel all his energy being drained from him as he slowly fell into a dark slumber.